Apple Introduces New MacBook Air and Mac Mini

[trs96]

So I will be ordering my self one of these, and keep my hackintosh of course.

It's always a good idea to have at least one working Apple Mac as well as a hackintosh. Most people do have and use both.

 

[izo1]

Apples refurbed 27" imac with 5k display is $1529. To me that's a much better deal than a bare mac mini at $799. Only time will tell.

What GPU?

The problem is even the RX580 isn't a good GPU to handle that massive display.

I've seen people have problems with even the top end iMac .

 

[Blindedbythelights]

somebody got his hands on a new Mac Mini SMBIOS already ?

I'd wondered this, especially for us Coffee Lake users. Currently on 18,3.

 

[trs96]

tomsguide.com has done some hands on testing (not a teardown) on the thermal performance and some other general testing of the new Mac mini.

"With its Intel Core i3 processor in a small metal enclosure, I expected that the Mac mini’s case would get hot when it was put through its paces. I was wrong.

Even after I streamed video, ran benchmark tests and used the system to work on this review, the Mac mini never got warmer than 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which is only 15 degrees above the room temperature of our lab. That's barely enough heat for it to feel warm to the touch.

It's well below the 95-degree comfort threshold we hold laptops to, and it's significantly cooler than the HP Z2 Mini G4 (94 degrees). Compared with smaller, less powerful mini PCs, like the Zotac Zbox PI225 pico, which hit 126 degrees during testing, and there's no comparison. The Mac mini is one cool customer."

So this is good news. The bad news is that Apple didn't make it nearly as easy to upgrade the Rn as in the 2012 version.
I didn't expect Apple to change their stance on end user upgrades.

"Accessing the internals of the system is difficult. Apple has a well-deserved reputation for making its products hard to upgrade, and the Mac mini is no exception. In a discussion with Apple representatives, it was explained that the Mac mini was meant to be "service upgradable" – upgradable by professionals at a Genius Bar or other approved Apple service provider – rather than "user upgradable."

Why Apple can't trust their customers to correctly upgrade the RAM, I have no idea.


6 Torx security screws to keep most people (non-techies) out of their Mini.

"A standard Torx driver set is not compatible with these screws, which feature a center pin inside the recessed driver slot of the screw."

Looks like iFixit will be selling a lot of custom Torx screwdrivers for Xmas this year !

You can read the whole review at their website. Still waiting to see a tear down from iFixit.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/mac-mini,review-5908.html

 

[trs96]

Here's a video review of the 6 core i7 Mini:

 

[Micalllee]

6 Torx security screws to keep most people (non-techies) out of their mini.

Looks like iFixit will be selling a lot of custom torx screwdrivers for Xmas this year !

In all fairness to Apple, I have a set of Torx security screwdrivers because my old coffee maker (probably bought around 2000) used them. I think it's a consideration for many manufacturers that make things with exposed line voltages inside their enclosure.

 

[trs96]

I think it's a consideration for many manufacturers that make things with exposed line voltages inside their enclosure.

Correct, Apple lawyers are already busy enough. They don't want any more lawsuits to deal with. I don't think there were any cases of customer harm from using the easy ram upgrade option they had previously used in the 2012 mini. See the video.

Here's a video of how it looks when you pry off the back/bottom cover, remove the 6 Torx screws and try to find where the RAM goes. They obviously want you to buy the RAM from them and have an Apple tech do the installation.

 

[vjuluss]

Interesting thread, I must say.

I'm a hackintosh user for a while now, not really a fanboy of Apple. But I am full Apple, as I have iPhone, iPad, Hackintosh, MacBook (from 2008!).
I was expecting something interesting with the last keynote. Like, maybe a MBA that is not overpriced, or a Mini that is not overpriced, or a Mac Pro that is not, yes you got it, overpriced.

But I was damn wrong ! The new MBA is nice and shinny but WOW the price. Forget about that. So is the Mini.

So, I will continue with this kind of setup :
- Desktop : hackintosh, always and forever. That's unbeatable for me. I have always bought computers that I built myself. I will continue like that. The other day, I needed more ram. I just ran into a shop, bought 8GB and voila. Same with hard drives.
- Laptop : I don't really need one. So I'll keep the old one one.

Anyway, for what I do with my computer, I don't even need a desktop. I go on the Internet, I manage some photos and documents and voilà. I use to have a Plex, but I don't use it anymore. Well, writing this help me to summarize. Maybe I should buy a used MacBook not too old and use it as my main computer, turn my desktop into a hypervisor and run some VM.

We'll see.

 

[TravelerTechie]

Interesting thread, I must say.

I'm a hackintosh user for a while now, not really a fanboy of Apple. But I am full Apple, as I have iPhone, iPad, Hackintosh, Macbook (from 2008!).
I was expecting something interesting with the last keynote. Like, maybe a MBA that is not overpriced, or a Mini that is not overpriced, or a Mac Pro that is not, yes you got it, overpriced.

But I was damn wrong ! The new MBA is nice and shinny but wow the price. Forget about that. So is the Mini.

So, I will continue with this kind of setup :
- Desktop : hackintosh, always and forever. That's unbeatable for me. I have always bought computers that I built myself. I will continue like that. The other day, I needed more ram. I just ran into a shop, bought 8GB and voila. Same with hard drives.
- Laptop : I don't really need one. So I'll keep the old one one.

Anyway, for what I do with my computer, I don't even need a desktop. I go on the internet, I manage some photos and documents and voilà. I use to have a Plex, but I don't use it anymore. Well, writing this help me to summarize. Maybe I should buy a used Macbook not too old and use it as my main computer, turn my desktop into a hypervisor and run some VM.

We'll see.

My Hackintosh PC is needed for video editing, and like you said, it's best to build your own. Cheaper with more power to run what I need without turning into an oven.

I want to replace my AsusPro laptop with a Macbook Air, and the new one with the TouchID and bezel-less display is not bad. But for basic tasks, it costs a fortune! And you can't say that it's a work computer, because there isn't even an option to have it with an i7 anymore (although iJustine said that she could do her video editing on there, so who knows?). Still, $1200 starting price for a dual core? No thanks. I will be looking into used older models and see if I can make up my mind.

 

[Ecchi Nutuano]

Somewhat off-topic, the embargo on the 2018 iPad Pro is over. And the A12X is surprising. We saw preview that it was going to be powerful when Anandtech did an analysis on the iPhone's A12, which despite being a mobile phone processor, it was approaching desktop-level performance. ArsTechnica just did some benchmarks on the new iPad Pro's A12X.

Apple's marketing at the event was "perform as well/better than 90% of last year's laptops"(I previously thought it was ultrabooks, but nope, it's laptops). At least in the synthetic realm, they perform as well as a 2017 MBP. Sure it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it's a little crazy how powerful these chips are.

Uhhh.. anyone want to bet Xcode 11.0 at WWDC is going to offer macOS apps with ARM compilation? Those of us who were around during the PPC-to-(x86)Intel transition, I suspect are about to have flash-backs. All this rumormill on future MB's with A-only chips are starting to look more and more likely. Though Apple is taking its time it seems. I remember the Intel transitions almost over-night (not the app support, but more like, hey, we are going intel, and all out products going forward are intel). Microsoft is already doing x86 emulation on ARM for Win10, so, this feels really drawn out in comparison.